Olo gets an $18 million investment

Restaurant digital ordering and delivery platform Olo on Wednesday said it has received an $18 million investment from Tiger Global Management.

The investment was structured using common equity held by long-term Olo employees, providing an opportunity for them to see a monetary benefit from Olo’s growth. The investment “offers a way for long-term team members to realize the value of their hard work to build and grow Olo,” Noah Glass, the New York-based company’s founder and CEO, said in a statement.

It is also a further acknowledgment about the future of off-premise and delivery in the restaurant space. Investors have been pouring money into delivery providers and other off-premise companies in the belief that they will grow as consumers increasingly demand restaurant food outside of the restaurant.

Olo works with numerous restaurant chains on their online and mobile ordering platforms and helps them integrate delivery services. The company has grown rapidly as more companies look to take advantage of technology to drive more takeout orders.

Olo started offering text message ordering in 2005 and today works with more than 250 restaurant brands and 50,000 locations, including Applebee’s, Chili’s, Chipotle, Denny’s and Five Guys, among others.

“We have invested heavily in the restaurant technology industry as part of our focus on e-commerce and are very impressed with the work Olo has done to help restaurant brands benefit from digital ordering adoption by acting as their digital interface and technology backbone,” Scott Shleifer, partner at Tiger Global Management, said in a statement.

Tiger is a big investor in technology companies, including Spotify, Facebook, LinkedIn and others.